charleston
/ˈtʃɑɹlstən/verb
charleston is a verb meaning “To dance the Charleston” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-H-A-R-L-E-S-T-O-N and has 2 syllables, and it appears 5.9 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does charleston mean?
verb
- 1
To dance the Charleston.
noun
- 1
A dance named for the city of Charleston, South Carolina.
Dubbed “the Black Venus”, she danced the charleston in nothing but a string of pearls and a skirt made of 16 rubber bananas, performed with a snake wrapped suggestively round her neck, strolled down the Champs-Élysées with her pet cheetah,
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce charleston?
- US /ˈtʃɑɹlstən/
Charleston has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-Charleston.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-charleston.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of charleston
- charlestons present, singular, he/she/it
- charlestoning participle, present
- charlestoned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is charleston?
Charleston appears 5.9 times per million words in written English, the 10,028th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does charleston come from?
From Charles + -ton. The places are named after various men named "Charles"; see definitions below.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).